Guerrilla Warfare?
Should Tripoli fall to rebel forces without the capture or deaths of Kadafi and his sons, the family could seek to continue fighting a guerrilla war against a new government. The precedent of Saddam's distribution of weapons to his fedayeen followers might lurk somewhere in the colonel's imagination. The same may be said of the precedent of the bedouin forces that fought the Italian army in the previous century, perhaps with the added romance of a heroic martyrdom while leading an epic charge.
Leaving the realm of romantic dreams for cold analysis, there is little likelihood of a longterm guerrilla resistance as found in Iraq following the western invasion in 2003. The Iraqi resistance was based on several forces, few of which have any parallels in Libya.
Saddam's Baath party, despite being securely in power for decades, kept a secret cell structure that gave the resistance an organizational structure; Kadafi's miscellany of committees and cronies cannot do the same. Western forces disbanded the Iraqi army, angering hundreds of thousands of experienced soldiers; the bulk of the Libyan army has turned on Kadafi.
The Iraqi insurgents enjoyed considerable support from adjacent states, especially from Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards; Kadafi has only the support of some Algerian security forces and sub-Saharan fighters who could never hope to operate in a sea of Arabs, the preponderance of whom are hostile to Kadafi.
Any attempt at a sustained insurgency would lead to nothing more than sporadic, short-lived fighting that would achieve little beside increased public animosity toward the Kadafi clan and their decrepit regime.
Outside Assistance
Rebel leaders and public voices call for outside, even American, help in ridding the country and the world of the Kadafis. The Arab League, Britain, and the US are all discussing imposing a no-fly zone on Libya to prevent further arrivals of foreign supporters of Kadafi and to prevent the use of airpower on the public. (The latter tugs at the heartstrings of outsiders but is at present not clearly established in fact.)
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